Why I Really Am with Her

Posted July 25, 2016 by 2twelvehundreds

There was no way I was ever voting for Donald Trump in November. And there really was no way I wasn’t going to vote. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Maryland primary, but once it was clear he wasn’t going to win, I was planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. So it’s no surprise that I’m still “with her,” but I’m going from tepid Clinton voter to, where can I donate and how do I get involved in the campaign, and here’s why.

Listening to Michelle Obama’s speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention moved me. I don’t think there’s a public person I respect more than Michelle Obama. I obviously only know of her public persona, and maybe she’s good at playing her part, but Michelle Obama comes across as an authentic person – unimpeachable. When Michelle Obama speaks, I want to hear what she’s saying and I trust she’s not lying to me. Now I’ve not read any of the commentary, or heard from the nattering nabobs on Twitter discussing her speech tonight, but to me, it made me really want Hillary Clinton to win.

The part about her kids really touched me because I’ve been thinking, “Can I raise my kids in a country that elects Donald Trump to be president?”

If I were single and had no children, I still couldn’t imagine a Donald Trump, but to raise kids and watch Donald Trump control the world’s most powerful economy and military, would be just too bizarre.

And besides the kid aspect, I also really believe that 90 percent of the stuff people say about Hillary Clinton is bullshit. Like this latest Democratic National Committee email hack and subsequent release. There’s nothing in the email messages that Hillary Clinton needs to apologize for. Some of those working for the DNC who sent the emails perhaps should be fired, but frankly, most of the emails are not the bombshells some people are proclaiming them to be. But if the DNC feels its impartiality and integrity was been compromised by people within the organization, the organization should do something about it. While this is an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to show leadership and kick some ass, if she left it up to the new DNC leadership to sort it out, whatever, who cares?

And this latest “Hillary Clinton scandal,” it’s just like the others – kind of fake. Yes, people in the DNC engaged in some partisan politics, it’s not super shocking. It really had nothing directly to do with Clinton, so she’s not even in the slightest bit responsible, just like Benghazi. Bad shit happened in Libya, and we can be critical of Obama and Clinton’s actions in the country, and some Americans, including our ambassador were killed. But was it directly her fault as secretary of state? Did she actively do something that caused those deaths? Of course not, but that doesn’t stop the Republican party from saying Hillary Clinton is directly responsible for those deaths. Some even arguing that Hillary Clinton should be in prison. Imagine that, if anyone dies while you’re secretary of state, you have to go to prison, convicted as a murderer. It might be hard to fill that position going forward.

It’s the same schtick with Hillary Clinton’s stupid email server. It’s quite likely that Hillary Clinton is telling the truth – that she setup the server out of convenience. I can guarantee that the State department communication systems are antiquated. Was it a mistake? In my opinion, absolutely. No matter who you are, you should always work within the confines of the organization’s information technology and information systems. Setting up your own server, while not terribly difficult to do, is also not particularly easy to do when handling potentially classified information. But should Hillary Clinton go to prison for that? Should her political career be damaged because of an email server? That’s ridiculous. It’s email.

Frankly, the real problem are people who are emailing classified information. They should be under investigation, particularly when sending to a non-governmental email address. Because it wasn’t a “secret email server.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not have a state.gov email address. So if you’re a trained federal employee, with access to classified information, you should know how to handle classified and potentially classified information, and should know that sending that information to an email address that is not state.gov, puts the information outside of the State department information technology. So the problem isn’t that Hillary Clinton had a personal email server that she conducted secretary of state business, it’s that people within the federal government are sending classified, or potentially classified information via email.

But it really all boils down to the fact that Donald Trump is just awful. He’s disgusting and awful and he can not be allowed to be president. It. Can. Not. Happen. Vote for Hillary Clinton.

* I love the above official portrait of Michelle Obama. Her standing there in the White House – a powerful and free black woman with Thomas Jefferson behind her, it’s powerful and says so much.